


Did It Hurt When You Fell From Gusu?

by psychomachia



Category: Supernatural, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Bad Decisions, Comfort/Angst, Jiang Cheng Has Had Enough, Lan Wangji Hasn't Even Gotten Started, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/pseuds/psychomachia
Summary: No, it didn't, because my boyfriend picked me up from the Burial Mounds. Or Lan Wangji saves Wei Wuxian, at the cost of Jiang Cheng's sanity.
Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Comments: 8
Kudos: 156
Collections: We Die Like Fen 4: We Lived to Die Afen





	Did It Hurt When You Fell From Gusu?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adspexi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adspexi/gifts).



“You could have come back sooner.”

“I--” and Wei Wuxian stops, well aware of all of the “could haves” that make up his life, of all the inadequate excuses he could make that are easily pushed aside by everything he's done. How can he explain something he doesn't even feel he deserves?

He settles for a helpless shrug.

Jiang Cheng looks on the verge of either crying or fighting, but Wei Wuxian knows his brother and it's not a surprise when he opts for a third option, as he scowls and stomps towards the door.

“Fuck you!”

The door slams shut and Wei Wuxian is left alone, to shrug and paste on a fake smile. “It's all right,” he says softly. “Jiang Cheng is going through a lot.”

It's hard to look at the heavenly being, resplendent in blue and white, standing there pristine and perfect and so unlike Wei Wuxian, who's a bedraggled mess, his black and red robes torn and dirty. Wei Wuxian ducks his head, aware of the piercing stare. “Lan Wangji, is it?” he asks, though he knows the answer. “You should go.”

“No.” There is no compromise, no bargaining in this voice. It is the voice of a being that will not be moved by anything. The voice of Heaven itself. “I will remain.”

“Really, Lan Wangji,” he says, “you've done enough. We'll be fine. I'm just going to go to sleep and--”

“You used to call me Lan Zhan,” the being says. “Why have you stopped?”

Wei Wuxian actually raises his head, surprised by the sudden twist in conversation. “I...I don't remember,” he says. “I knew you?' His childhood is mostly a blur of hunting monsters, of taking of Jiang Cheng, of a home lost to fire and pain and a failure to live up to expectations when they mattered the most.

The less said about his adulthood, the better.

“Mmm,” Lan Wangji—Lan Zhan says.

Wei Wuxian waits for him to elaborate, but nothing is forthcoming. “You're not going to tell me?” It's pitifully close to a whine and he pouts his lips.

“No.”

Wei Wuxian plops down on the threadbare couch and lets out a breath. “Whatever,” he mumbles. “You don't need to stay.” He wipes at his eyes, red from lack of sleep and something that threatens to overwhelm him, an exhausted despair that he pushes down. “You don't need to do anything.”

Lan Zhan sits on the couch next to him. “Yes.”

Wei Wuxian is a creature of impulses and bad decisions, so putting his head on a heavenly being's shoulder is not even in the top ten of his worst decisions. It doesn't feel like it even after a few seconds when his brain catches up to his heart and says, you do realize you're taking advantage of something that can kill you as easily as breathing.

Lan Wangji, when he first showed up, was an awesome creature of wings and light and a voice that echoed through him, engraving itself into his bones as surely as he had been marked on his chest.

It should be terrifying to have something that says you belong to someone. 

It's comforting instead and Wei Wuxian allows himself to close his eyes, to just rest for a few seconds on Lan Zhan. Eventually, he'll get annoyed or uncomfortable or realize that Wei Wuxian isn't worth it, just like everyone else has.

The good thing about him being a divine creature of ineffability and probable immortality is that Wei Wuxian will have to try really hard to fuck up and get him killed.

“Go to sleep, Wei Ying,” the voice says, and it's a soft sigh, a hush of clouds that Wei Wuxian sinks into and lets himself drift away in.

* * *

_He's buried so deep no one can find him, and there's bodies all around him. Some of them know him and they curse, but it doesn't matter how deep their enmity runs, he'll always hate himself more than they do._

_It's why he made the deal, why he chose to save his brother's life over his. If this means that he spends the rest of his life in a hell of his own making, then it's just punishment._

_The rotting corpses hiss at him “You did this to us,” they say. “Did you think you were a good person?You belong here, you and your magic and all the lives you took.”_

_He could say, I did it to save my family._

_He could say, I did it to save my friends._

_I did it because I couldn't see any other choice._

_But he doesn't say anything and lets them torture him into the temporary comfort of oblivion._

_It's worse when it's Jiang Cheng saying it. He knows it's not really him there because his brother is alive and well and not bleeding to death in his arms, saying promise me you won't try to raise me. You promise me you'll let me die._

_He doesn't raise him. He doesn't let him die._

_“You think I would ever want you back,” Jiang Cheng says to him. “My life is so much better with you gone.”_

_“It's not like you could save our family.”_

_He reaches for Jiang Cheng, to apologize, to offer himself up for any punishment Jiang Cheng wants to inflict to make it right., and Jiang Cheng turns his back. Walks away._

_That's what breaks him._

_So when Xue Yang comes to him and smiles and says, “Yiling Patriarch, now don't you want to help me with these pathetic souls,_

_And then one day, when he thinks, well, this is it, this is what I deserve, there's light and a hand reaching back for him and it pulls him out, holds onto him, and says, Wei Ying, hold on._

_Wei Ying, come back with me._

_Come home._

“I don't deserve this,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, caught between dream and waking. “You should have left me there.” There's something soft beneath him, the scratchiness of the couch replaced with a smooth, cool fabric and a warmth that surrounds him, tells him he's safe and protected.

“Never.”

“I will always bring you back.”

* * *

Jiang Cheng feels guilty in the morning.

It's not a new feeling, but it's especially bad this time because his brother is alive, is home, and instead of welcoming him back, he yelled at him and that look on Wei Wuxian's face--

Fuck. He wants to punch something.

Plus, that heavenly being that was hovering around didn't help. He looked at him like it could read everything in his soul and was deeply disappointed by what he saw.

But it's been four months and one dead brother brought back to life later and he can be the bigger person. He can at least knock on the door, give Wei Wuxian a smile, offer to share a meal with him.

He steels himself.

He can do this.

Jiang Cheng goes to the next room, starts to knock on the door.

It swings slightly open.

Fuck, some things never change, he thinks. Wei Wuxian is still a careless person and he's going to give him a piece of his mind about locking the damn door.

But Jiang Cheng's jaw clamps shut at the scene that awaits him. He raises his hand to gesture at it, because in the grand scheme of fucked-up shit he's seen in his life, this goes beyond even the zombie kids.

“Shh,” the being says quietly. “You'll wake him.”

Wei Wuxian's head is nestled on his lap, his long hair being smoothed back by a hand that gently strokes it. There's a look of peaceful contentment on his face that matches the serene expression of the being. It's a lovely, tender scene of tranquility.

Fuck this, Jiang Cheng thinks.

Only my brother could literally go to the underworld and come back with a lovestruck divinity.

He opens his mouth to really start yelling.

**Author's Note:**

> Once they get to Lucifer, it'd be Wen Ruohan or Jin Guangyao trying to take over Jiang Cheng's body and both are equally horrible yet hilarious possibilities.


End file.
